Ardcarne Life Assurance / BB-Demo – Kickoff
Callcompleted
Ardcarne Life Assurance: documents · 2026-10-06 15:30
Kickoff with Niamh Costello, Chief Data Officer, on the 6 Oct 2026 call. Outcome is one view of each broker firm. Security items and the July outage write-up stay open, and the plan depends on her naming owners by Friday.
What was said
What this says
Current to 11 Oct 26Kickoff with Niamh Costello, Chief Data Officer, on the 6 Oct 2026 call. Outcome is one view of each broker firm. Security items and the July outage write-up stay open, and the plan depends on her naming owners by Friday.
What happened: Elena Novak ran the kickoff on the contracted Enterprise order form, 150 users, £125,000, term to 30 Sep 2027. Niamh confirmed that is how she holds it.
Customer view: Niamh wants a single view of each broker firm and asked for a pilot group first, then a wider rollout. She wants the next phase to be dull and on time.
Watch: The July outage write-up is the first thing her CISO will ask about. The exit plan and the DORA register entry are still drafts, and the connector dates depend on names and a definition of a firm from her side.
Commercial: Pilot-first adoption and the identity team's SSO and SCIM work tie directly to the Enterprise tier. A clean first wave is the base for a good first renewal.
Themes
Current to 9 Oct 26Theme
Enterprise kickoff and security items
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BB-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
Current to 9 Oct 26- Niamh Costello to send named owners and her broker firm definition by Friday.
- Theo Gallagher to send the data residency confirmation and the draft exit plan by the end of next week, after confirming the outage wording with the platform team.
- Ollie Pearson to issue the dated connector sequence once the names are in.
Risks
Current to 9 Oct 26- The July outage write-up and the exit plan draft are open items her CISO will scrutinise, and he can still raise further questions.
- Connector dates slip if Niamh does not send the technical, identity and source owners and her definition of a broker firm by Friday.
- The DORA register entry for BB-Demo is still a draft until her risk colleagues have read it.
Opportunities
Current to 9 Oct 26- A successful pilot with broker managers and customer service leads builds the case for the wider rollout across the 150 users.
- Second-wave sources, the policy administration system and shared documents, deepen the brain's roots in the account.
Transcript
Elena Novak NoneHello, can everyone hear me? Niamh, Ollie, I think we are only waiting for Theo.
Niamh Costello NoneHello Elena, I can hear you well. Afternoon, Ollie. I think Theo's tile has just appeared.
Theo Gallagher NoneSorry, sorry, wrong link, I was still sitting in the room from the previous call. I'm here now. Can you hear me? Good. Thanks, Theo, hello all.
Ollie Pearson NoneAfternoon, Niamh. Good to put a face to the emails at last. It's properly wet in London today, I hope Dublin is kinder.- Niamh Costello NoneGrey and windy, which is October for you. Shall we start? I have a hard stop at the end of the hour, give or take.
- Elena Novak NoneOf course. Thank you all for making the time. To confirm, I sent the agenda yesterday, so let me restate it briefly. There are four points. One, the outcome we are building towards. Two, the open items from the security review and who owns each of them. Three, the implementation plan: connectors, owners and order. Four, how we will work together week to week. Matteo is not joining; he has asked the three of us to take this forward with you, and I will make sure he receives the written actions.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you. May I take the first point myself, because it drives everything else? What does good look like for the brokers? It means that when a broker firm rings us, whoever picks up, distribution or customer service, sees the same single view of that firm. Policies, correspondence, open complaints, who spoke to them last. At the moment each side has half the picture, and we spend the first part of every call reconciling. If the brain gets us to one view, I'm happy. Everything else is in service of that, and let's not over-engineer it.
- Elena Novak NoneThank you, that is very clear. I will make sure the plan is written against that outcome, in those words. Ollie, you will keep it in front of the connector order?
- Ollie Pearson NoneYes, definitely. It decides which sources go first. I'll come to that in a moment.
- Elena Novak NoneThen Theo, would you take point two?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYes. Thanks, Elena. I'll list the open findings and their owners, and I'll keep them numbered so they mirror the questionnaire you already have. One. Data residency. The control reference is in the pack, and we can evidence that the brain is built and run inside your own Snowflake account, so your data stays where you already hold it. The finding is open only because the written confirmation has not yet gone to your team. Owner: me. Two. Your DORA register entry for BB-Demo as an ICT third party. Your team owns the template, I own the content. It's drafted, but it is still a draft, and I won't call it final until your risk colleagues have read it. Three. The exit plan. Four. The write-up of the July outage.
- Niamh Costello NoneTake the last one slowly, please. That outage landed in the middle of your review, and it's the first thing my CISO will ask me about.
- Theo Gallagher NoneUnderstood. From the review's side the finding is closed, and the written report is in the pack. It sets out what happened, how it was handled and what changed afterwards. Before I commit to any further wording on the cause, I'll confirm with our platform team, because I don't answer for them without asking. I'll have that back to you by the end of next week, and I'll put the date in writing.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. And let me be plain about the CISO. I need him comfortable, and I won't override him. If he has a further question, it will come through me and I'll pass it to you, and I would rather it arrived early than late.
- Elena Novak NoneAs agreed. Written questions come through Niamh, and I will log each one with an owner and a date.
- Theo Gallagher NoneOn the exit plan, here is the dated commitment: the first draft goes to your team by the end of next week, same as the outage note. It covers how you would take your data and the brain's configuration out, and how long you would keep read access during a hand-over. Because the data never leaves your Snowflake account, the exit is mostly about the configuration and the history of questions, not about moving the data itself.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat's the right shape. Is that a version I could show my risk colleagues?
- Theo Gallagher NoneYou could show it to them as a draft. I wouldn't call it final until your CISO has read it and we've both signed it off. I'll mark it clearly as a draft.
- Niamh Costello NoneFine. Good, thank you.
- Elena Novak NoneShall we move to point three? Ollie.
- Ollie Pearson NoneThanks, Elena. So, my proposal is to resist connecting everything at once. Your outcome is one view of each broker firm, so I'd start with two sources: the broker records in your CRM, and the customer service tickets from the helpdesk. Those two alone give distribution and customer service a shared picture of a firm. Then the policy administration system and the shared documents in a second wave, once we've seen the first two load cleanly and you trust the answers. The brain refreshes overnight, and on business days that should be complete by 07:00 your time, so the first people in see yesterday's changes. Before I can start I need three things from you. A technical owner for the Snowflake side, a data owner for each source, and one person who can say what a broker firm actually is in your data, because I suspect each system defines it differently.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat last one made me smile, because you're right. Distribution has a firm under one name, the policy system has it under another, and customer service has a third variant. That's exactly the problem. I'll own that definition myself for now. For the technical owner I need to check who has the time, so don't write a name down yet.
- Ollie Pearson NoneNo problem. Could you come back to me by Friday on the names? I'd rather have a short gap than a long one.
- Niamh Costello NoneFriday is fine. I don't like vague timelines, so I'll hold myself to the same standard. Names by Friday.
- Elena Novak NoneTo confirm, action: Niamh to send the named owners by Friday. I have written it down.
- Niamh Costello NoneHow soon would the first answers be usable? I'm not asking for a promise. I'm asking what you would say if you were me.
- Ollie Pearson NoneIf I were you, I'd plan on the first two sources being loaded and checkable within a couple of weeks of getting access, and I'd test the answers against a handful of broker firms you know well, so you can tell straight away whether it's right. Access is the thing that moves it, not our side. I'll write the sequence with dates against what you send on Friday, and if anything slips I'll tell you the same day, Niamh.
- Niamh Costello NoneGood. Vendors who tell me early are the ones I keep.
- Elena Novak NoneOn users, to confirm what is contracted. The order form is for 150 users on Enterprise, with the annual subscription at £125,000, and the term runs to 30 Sep 2027. The first invoice matches the order form. Is that how you have it on your side?
- Niamh Costello NoneThat's how I have it. And I'd like not to switch all of them on in the first week. I would rather start with a pilot group, the broker managers and the customer service leads, and widen it once the answers are trusted.
- Elena Novak NoneThat is sensible. I will make sure the adoption plan shows the pilot group first and the wider rollout second, with a review point before each step. Ollie, Theo, anything on licensing?
- Theo Gallagher NoneOnly that single sign-on and user provisioning need someone from your identity team, so that belongs on Niamh's list of owners as well. Without it the pilot users would be created by hand, and I'd rather not do that.
- Niamh Costello NoneFair point. Another owner, then. Add it to the list.
- Ollie Pearson NoneWill do. Let me put the sequence on screen, it's one page. Can you see it? First wave at the top, second wave underneath, and the owners down the right-hand side with the gaps left blank on purpose.
- Niamh Costello NoneGive me a minute to read this properly.
- Niamh Costello NoneRight. One question. Why is the policy system in the second wave? That's where most of the detail on a broker firm sits, isn't it?
- Ollie Pearson NoneIt is, and I'd come back to it very soon after. My concern is that it's the heaviest source, and I'd like you to have seen the brain give a sensible answer on a simpler pair of sources before we load the biggest one. If the first answers are wrong because the definition of a firm is muddled, I would rather find that out on two sources than on four. If you want to move it up, we can, but I'd want your word that the definition is settled first.
- Niamh Costello NoneNo, that's reasonable. Leave it where it is. I'd rather be right than quick.
- Niamh Costello NoneWho do I ring if something goes wrong? I don't want to be passed around.
- Elena Novak NoneMe first. I will make sure that you always have one person to ask, and that is me. Security or control questions I will route to Theo, and anything about the connectors to Ollie, but you do not need to work out which.
- Elena Novak NoneNow point four, how we work week to week. My proposal is a short weekly checkpoint with the four of us, on Thursday, with written actions after each one and one named owner per action. I will keep a single list so that you do not have to look in several places.
- Niamh Costello NoneWeekly is good, as long as it's short and as long as it's about decisions, not updates. If there's nothing to decide, cancel it and send me a line.
- Ollie Pearson NoneThat works for me. The first checkpoint would be next week, once we have the names.
- Elena Novak NoneThen let me confirm the written actions, which I will send today. One. Niamh sends the named owners for the technical side, the identity side and each source, together with her definition of a broker firm, by Friday. Two. Theo sends the data residency confirmation and the first draft of the exit plan, marked as a draft, by the end of next week. Three. Theo confirms the outage wording with our platform team before it goes to you. Four. Ollie issues the connector sequence with dates once the names are in. Five. The first weekly checkpoint takes place next week. Six. I log any question from your CISO with an owner and a date. Have I missed anything?
- Niamh Costello NoneNo, that's the list. I'd add that I want the pilot group named in the first checkpoint, not later.
- Elena Novak NoneAs agreed. Seven. Pilot group named at the first checkpoint, owner Niamh.
- Niamh Costello NoneIs there anything I should be worried about that you haven't said? Tell me now rather than in a month.
- Theo Gallagher NoneNothing on the security side that isn't on the list. The open items are known and they each have an owner. I'd only say that the exit plan will need your CISO's eyes before anyone calls it done.
- Ollie Pearson NoneFrom my side, honestly, the main risk is access and definitions, not the software. If we get the names and the definition of a firm by Friday, I'm comfortable. If they slip, the dates slip, and I will say so the same day.
- Niamh Costello NoneThat's the answer I wanted. Thank you, all of you. It's been a long road through the review and the outage, and I would like the next part to be dull and on time.
- Elena Novak NoneThat is what we will aim for. I will make sure the written actions reach you today, and the plan will be written against your outcome, one view of each broker firm. Kind regards, and thank you again for the time.
- Niamh Costello NoneThank you. Best, Niamh, speak next week.
- Ollie Pearson NoneCheers, everyone. Speak on Friday, Niamh, with the names, I hope.
- Theo Gallagher NoneThanks, Theo. Goodbye, all.
- Elena Novak NoneGoodbye, everyone. The recording is stopping now.
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